Chapter Text
Low rumbles reverberated overhead, the sound one might associate with an incoming thunderstorm. The skies though, were clear, save for the pinpricks of light leaving trails of smoke behind them as they fell. There were hundreds, as they grew closer, sonic booms shuddered the ground below. Their sizes varied from large to small, as the fires on them began to extinguish, and those masses began to cool, their nature began to reveal themselves to the audience below. There were no viewers except for the scattering of small critters fleeing rock crevices and thicket dotting the landscape below. The vast rolling tundra providing little in the way concealment compared to the wilderness sprawling the mountain range just on the horizon.
Following lazily behind was the source of the display. Remains of what was once a large space station was fighting a losing battle with the gravity of the planet below. Pieces continued to break free as atmospheric forces attacked the structure. Thin wiry subsections, bristling communication antennas, and massive solar panels were ripped off the main column of station. The structure designed solely for the environment found in high orbit.
One piece of debris was different, seemingly defying the laws of gravity that affected the rest of the station. It veered away, level, under partial control of its pitch and yaw. The object, an escape pod, was still falling like a brick. The terrain below was full of hills, the beginning of a mountain range could be seen in the distance. The pod was darting to a fro searching for a place to land. Ahead of it was a flat dry stream bed, the water seemed to recede to half its banks beside it. The pilot of the craft was hoping the sand and gravel would make for a soft landing.
It didn't.
Braking thrusters fired to almost no effect, and to make matters worse the pod had been damaged upon re-entry. With a port side stabilizer sheared clean off, the sleek bumblebee shaped escape pod could still function perfectly with no stabilizers at all... in space. Atmospheric conditions without those control surfaces gone were still manageable, in optimum conditions. Optimum conditions being a trained lifeboat pilot for one, and a pod that wasn't on its last legs, age wise, secondly.
The last second over-correction right before the pod hit zero altitude didn't help matters either. The starboard side stabilizer was the first to touch the soft soil, it caught, yanking the nose of the craft straight into ground. Momentum continued pushing the craft along, the tail lifting up in the air, threatening to flip the lifepod as the nose dug in deeper. Luckily gravity brought everything to a stop, causing the rear of the craft to crash downwards.
Gases and coolant hissed out of vents near the burnt-out thrusters and other exhaust ports. Parts of the hull still smoldered from the unorthodox reentry. Sparks danced around the front of the craft, the cockpit and crumbled body panels. Nothing moved in or around the crash site. It took a full minute before any sign of life came from the pod. The rear of the craft was nothing but a reinforced hatch. That hatch being the only connecting point to the station as it sat in its berth ready for use.
BANG....BANG.... BANG
"ROSE, ROSE!!! STOP!" a voice could faintly be heard inside from outside the pod as the pressure release valves around the boat closed, leaving the area in silence.
"WHAT?!" A ruby haired girl whirled on the other live occupant of the pod. Well she presumed he was the only other live occupant. Rose had not fully understood her companion's introduction to this Mikleo character. Deciding it best not to ask, she chalked it up to Mikleo being his ship's AI. Spacers, lone spacers more so, developed strong bonds to their shipboard computer systems. These systems, even in smaller ships had become increasingly so advanced that artificial intelligences where installed to monitor and control everything, from small things like doors and maintenance drones, to vastly more important items like engines and life support systems. In the last couple centuries, people started getting comfortable enough with the AIs to give them personality matrices and other quirks to give them a semblance of sentience.
At the girl's exclamation the other occupant flinched back. "It's magnetically sealed, the release" he pointed above her, "it’s above your head." He tried to suppress a grin despite the overall situation, barely managing.
Tilting her head around and up slightly she eyed the bright red lever. EMERGENCY OVERRIDE stared back angrily in fluorescent lettering. Dropping a sledge hammer and crowbar grabbed in haste from the toolkit beside the hatch she grumbled, "I didn't know this thing was that damn old"
After unlocking the mechanism, Rose heaved the handle to the open position where it made a satisfying click when it was fully disengaged. The hatch in correspondence sprung open... partially. It was barely enough the get an arm through.
"AGH, WHAT THE..!"
"Hold on" The brown-haired boy cut her off. He got up from the seat he had collapsed in after landing and hobbled over. His medium stature and compact build made the aisle lined with bucket seats easy to navigate. The source of his hobble, though, was adding a good margin of difficulty. In the end he managed to squeeze himself next to similarly built, though certianly not as broad, girl in front of the hatch.
"On the count of 3, we'll each grab a side and pull it open" the hatch was that of a receding door, split down the middle. "1...2...3..." they grunted in unison.
The force they exerted freed the bind the door was in. It finished snapping open, causing Rose and company to lose balance and tumble unceremoniously onto the ground. Rose had enough grace to catch herself, unlike the other. In his defense he was injured. This became all the more evident from the gasp that escaped his mouth.
"It's broken, isn't it." the boy noted the lack of an inquisitive tone in her voice. Having brushed herself off, Rose proceeded to help him sit up.
"No, I wouldn't say that"
Rose's deft fingers pressed along a tender spot along his shin.
"Ow, ow, OW! Okay?" She prodded his ankle, "OKAY ITS BROKEN." He could hardly swat her hand away as tears threatened to spill.
"You said you could pilot!" Rose flicked out a utility knife, and began cutting the away at the space suit he wore. A small chirp let them know that the boy's suit integrity had been compromised. That was obvious as the girl began peeling the suit away from his knee down. Angry reds and blues laid underneath, his ankle was already beginning to swell.
"I can pilot!" He defended
"What do you call that?!" Rose jerked her chin to the lifeboat he was leaning back on. The damage was much worse than what was evident inside. The craft was never going to make it off the ground again, the nose was beyond crumpled. Fracturing was evident even beyond the cockpit, which was misshapen due to a crumpled support beam. That would explain the broken leg. She had made a makeshift pad out of the torn off suit leg to place the injury on. After standing up, she then made her way to get the medkit attached to a bulkhead back in the pod.
"There was a bunny" he replied as she returned. He couldn't resist the urge to scratch the back of his head. He refused to meet her eyes as he stated that, so he missed one of her's twitching.
"A bunny?"
"Yes?" His green eyes flicked up briefly to catch her blue ones.
"This is an alien planet, how could there have been a bunny?" Rose's tone hadn't turned angry... yet.
"Well I wouldn't say it was exactly a bunny, but bunny-like enough." The boy pondered back on what he remembered seeing through the cockpit canopy. He will admit seeing the bunny shaped creature had caused him to jerk the controls to avoid it. From the brief glimpse he remembered it just sitting there frozen, mandibles hanging open, staring wide eyed at the lifeboat coming towards it. He wondered if it got over it's shock and ran away, or better yet he missed it.
"Unbelievable, you wrecked the pod, shattered your ankle, and fractured your shin over a bunny." She placed a scanner she was holding over his leg back in the case. A can with an odd pointy end on it was removed. Nobody missed the rust eating away the other end.
"Well, they say these things never expire," she stated after looking at the label. "Let's see if that's the case."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait! Rose, what is that thing?!" The young man was attempting to move away from the multiple needles hovering just centimeters above his skin.
"You've never used medbots before?" She looked at him incredulously
"No?" Medbots? He stared at the can. It looked nothing like the medical droid back at his home station. Then again, he never got to see it in action as it didn't work. Thankfully he never needed it to work.
"You've just let your own nanobots heal you? That takes a long time." Rose sounded impressed. Nanobots didn't ring a bell either. Mikleo had hogged all those files, which was fine. It allowed him in the end to focus on pilot manuals and procedures.
"No, somebody at home always patched me back up." He supplied. It would be a stretch to say that he was graceful in zero gravity. That wasn't for a lack of trying, and he wasn't going to fault his mentor. Needless to say, the learning process involved a good number of broken bones. This would be the first time they would get healed with "medbots".
"Well these guys work just the same as your nanobots, but are localized around the injection points. They'll assist your own nanobots tenfold in repairing the fracture and setting your shattered ankle. The shin will be good as new it a couple hours, the ankle on the other hand will be at least a day." A small prick was all that was felt as the dispenser injected the medbots. Rose only stuck him twice, once on the side of the calf, and once on the front of his ankle. The can was thrown over her shoulder landing on a seat with an empty rattle.
"A day?!" When he was healed at home, the result was almost instantaneous, granted he'd be on bed rest for the rest of the day. At least he could walk, and there was never any need to tear apart his space suit.
"The ankle is shattered," she admonished. "I'm surprised you didn't have an issue getting yourself out of the cockpit after it crumpled."
He did actually, but with a shake of his head Mikleo gave him a hand before taking over the pilot seat himself. The thrusters, though broken, still needed to be properly shut down. Power also had to be rerouted past a couple damaged runs to get the coms working and at least some lights on before nightfall.
A cooling wrap was placed around his ankle and midway up the shin. After a few seconds it hardened into a cast. The medbots must have been doing their job, the throbbing pain began to ebb away.
"Don't put pressure on it for at least a couple hours, the nanobots will send a ping to your personal once they've done enough for you to move." Rose disappeared into the pod once more, this time returning with a couple of packs.
"Rations and your basic survival gear. Where it'll just be you I'd spend the night in the pod, no need to set up camp." She had both packs opened checking the contents of each.
"Just me? Where are you going?" he eyed the items she was going through. She seemed to keep a few items and discard the rest. Rose threw a thumb over her shoulder at a large column of smoke rising from the mountains.
"To get my ship."
The station's large massive docking ring looked relatively intact jutting hundreds of meters into the sky, the side that wasn't crushed into the ground that is. The structure had crashed on its side, coming to rest on the mountain closest to them. It was simple in design, being that of a sort of pinwheel. It was built before artificial gravity was commercialized for the civilian market, so it rotated on its central axis to give those residing in the docking ring pseudo-gravity.
"Rose, I don't think your ship is intact."
"Dezel wouldn't have let anything happen to her."
Rose had dubbed her ship's AI Dezel, well the AI had actually told her that it's name was Dezel. Her ship Sweepstake had been acquired in a game of chance. The boy still needed to find a way to explain the two "AI" in their group weren't in fact AIs’.
Speaking of “AIs” a small click and whirr came from the pod. After a minute there was a steady thrum from the hull he was resting his head against. A shock of white hair, light blue eating at the tips of a stylized sweep, leaned out of the hatch.
"Powers on." Announced the owner of said hair. Natural violet eyes alternated between looking at the boy's eyes and his injury. "Sorey, all fixed up?"
"It feels better" he answered with a shrug of shoulders, then pleadingly, "can't you heal it?"
"No. If you hadn't of botched the landing none of this would've happened, would it? Mason taught us better you know." Mikleo tried not to sound too accusing, Sorey was injured after all.
"But, there was a bunny!" Sorey pleaded
"I didn't see a bunny, and I was standing right next to you." Mikleo fired back. Sorey remembered the death grip on his shoulder. His companion stood leaning over the side of the pilot's seat, his other hand bracing himself on a grab bar. Mikleo claimed to be assisting Sorey scout the terrain below for a spot to bring the pod down, but part was also in need to be near in fear for their lives. Deadstick landings are never fun.
Rose, finished with her packing, noticed Sorey having a one-sided conversation. "How did your AI get the power back on? Wait, never mind, can he raise Sweepstake or get a hold of Dezel?"
Mikleo shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped. Instead, with a slight huff he raised his arm, attached was Sorey's personal. In the little time they had known Rose their previous assumption was that she had enough resonance to perceive Mikleo had been short lived. Both had originally made the assumption due to the tall tan figure on her right side. The silver hair highlighted with light green tips hinted that he was a seraph like Mikleo. The introduction from Rose unfortunately had included Dezel and “ship AI” in the same sentence.
Their first meeting took place only a few days ago aboard her ship. There a regular AI could make use of holographic projectors to make their appearance anywhere they choose. If one had access to one, a hologram emitter could allow an AI to go outside the bounds of their ship. Unfortunately those emitters weren't available to people outside the government, thus Mikleo didn't have one. This in turn earned Sorey's introduction and gesture towards seemingly open air a curious look. Dezel did nothing but upkeep a challenging aurora.
Mikleo scrolled through the menu on Sorey's personal, searching for Rose's com link. It had been a miracle that they found Mikleo could use it as a method of communication after a call Rose had made. They were setting up last minute details on this current "small operation" as the red head had dubbed it, when the camera feed caught the seraph walking by. Rose perked up at the sight of the shorter lithe male. ‘Sorey! You sly dog, I didn't know you had company.’ She had thought he had arrived to the planet alone.’ Wuh?’ Sorey tuned in his seat seeing his friend had entered their ship's bridge. ‘Oh you mean Mikleo! Ya he's here.’ Ah so that must be his AI Rose thought, she still had yet to get properly introduced. That had to wait as Sorey started right in on details both boys wanted clarity on.
Rose's com automatically opened the channel when the seraph pinged it. Mikleo made sure to add a slight monotone to his voice when he spoke. He still had his doubts about trusting the young entrepreneur with their 'secret', but they needed to reveal it soon though. On the other hand it was rather fun going along with her misconception that he was an AI. Sorey gave a slight frown to the deception. Mikleo's shrug in turn asked, 'what else could they do?'
“I'm pretty sure the issue is on our end, but I could not get through to the Sweepstake.” he supplied.
“Pretty sure?” an incredulous look crossed her features.
“Well if our brilliant pilot had not have damaged the communication's array I could tell you for sure. The back-up array is low powered, I doubt it could penetrate the station's hull if your ship is still docked in the main bay. I also recall us powering Sweepstake down before gallivanting aboard the station.”
“Gallivanting, really Mikleo?” Sorey chuckled, he got a half glare in return.
“What about Dezel?” Rose sought.
“He was still in the station's contr- *cough* mainframe last we had contact. It’s pretty well protected, so he's fine. The station is dead though, I doubt the back-up generators survived a fall like that. The mainframe should have its own separate back-up though.” Humans are nothing if not redundant. “There is no way to tell exactly, the station is almost 400 years old, I'm surprised it fell relatively intact.” Mikleo continued.
“Wait, I thought we agreed it was at least 700, created right at the end of the Era of Expansion!” Sorey argued.
“You think every pinwheel station is from the Era of Expansion. The presence of artificial gravity in the central section’s puts it in the recent Anti-grav Era.” Mikleo quipped.
“It was abandoned shortly after that time, why invest so much capita and leave?” Sorey shifted to face Mikleo more, readying up for a debate.
“Any number of reasons, it’s obvious this system was not economically stable. Otherwise the entire station would have hosted artificial gravity.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Knock it off you two.” she spoke into her com for Mikleo to hear, not knowing he was standing right beside her nearest the hatch.
This morning was nothing but the two going back and forth as they scouted the station. After the first hour she had turned her com off so at least she only had to hear Sorey's remarks. “How far is the station Mikleo?”
“If I had a guess, about 70 kilometers?”
“I trust I don’t have to ask you to keep an eye on Sorey while I'm gone. He has a few injuries but he should be good to move around in a couple hours.”
“I am aware. It may be wrong of me to say, but luckily he is injured. He's pretty compliant then.” he smirked after seeing Sorey's pout in the corner of his eye.
“Good. Sorey you should hear from me in about 10 hours, you’re lucky I do this thing on a regular basis.”
“What, crash space stations and get stranded on planets?”
“We aren't stranded, but hoofing it 70km to catch a ride is nothing. Oh, before I forget,” she pulled her back up gun from her suits ankle holster. Her sidearm still sat locked on her thigh, bits of it glowing ominously underneath its outer casing.
“I noticed you don't carry one. This is a general issue energy pistol. Stun,” she moved a thumb switch, “kill, it has a palm and trigger safety. Just in case the wildlife wants to see if your edible.”
“I have my blade” Sorey started to refuse
“Let's see you dance right now then buddy” Rose flicked her eyes to the cast. She still had the pistol extended out to him, handle out.
“I see your point” He took it and let the sidearm snap in place on his thigh.
His suit, like hers had hard points all over to lock any variety of things in place. Tools, electronics, other suits if in zero-G, and of course weapons. Rose still had three that he could see on her person this very instant, who knew how many she had stashed in and under the rest of her suit. He had questioned the need for all the artillery when they were only headed to an abandoned station. ‘You never know’ was the reply he got.
“Well if that's all? Without any satellites our personal coms are useless past a about 10 kilometers. If for whatever reason I can't reach you from Sweepstake I’ll find a way to send a signal.”
“What kind of signal?” Sorey asked, from what Mikleo had hinted at, they couldn’t rely on the lifeboats communication suite.
Rose rubbed at her eyes. “I don't know Sorey. I'll make smoke signals, send a homing pigeon, something. Just keep an eye out. The plan is to be here first thing in the morning, after I finish the job.”
“You’re still going to complete the contract?” he was a little dumbfounded, especially after all they had been though.
“Of course, Mayvin and I go way back. You said it yourself the labs would be the best place to find the research data.”
“I'd be careful, Rose” Mikleo suggested, he hadn't bothered to close the com connection. “It’s obvious we tripped some trap, it’s the only likely scenario for why the station locked out Dezel and ditched itself in the gravity well. Someone must not want that data to be stumbled upon.”
“This isn't my first rodeo, besides I wasn't the one who tripped the trap. I told you, Sorey, not to touch anything."
“Bu-”
“But nothing.” Rose's half glare let Sorey know she wasn’t truly upset.
She would've activated the blinking message panel as well if she were close enough. They had just entered the research and development section of the station. The particular sub-section they were in was without power, only emergency lighting had illuminated the corridors and rooms branching off it. Upon entering a lab complex they were greeted by a reception area, a desk was situated to the side. An active terminal lay upon it, with a message icon flashing on the corner of the archaic 2-dimensional display. Thinking it was some sort of clue Sorey tapped the screen. Klaxons and red strobe lighting followed suite. Automated announcements had urged them to evacuate the station immediately. Yellow illuminated lines appeared on the once clear floors, ‘escape pods this way,’ flashing alongside. They barely made it to the line of pods just two sections over.
After Rose's dismissal and two finger salute, she turned towards the station. With a deep breath and an additional wave over her shoulder, she began the 70 kilometer walk to their only way off planet. It didn't take long to lose sight of her. After following the small stream a ways she disappeared over a natural embankment.
Sorey was fiddling with the quick-cast.
“Stop or your only going to make the bots have to work harder” Mikleo chided.
“It itches Mikleo!”
“Tough. Here let me at least get you inside. It would be best if you lay down and rest, we don't have mush else to do until she returns.”
Mikleo had checked the personal for progress on Sorey's ankle. It was indeed shattered, and would actually take longer than Rose had originally predicted. He had heard Rose explaining how the medbots helped Sorey's own nanobots with healing. The thing was that Sorey didn't have any nanobots in his system. Elysia had access to the technology of course, but Sorey and his home star system was inhabited entirely by Seraphim, Sorey being the sole human.
Ascended beings, better known as Seraph, due to thier rapidly progressed evolutionary track had access to powers that could alter the material world, making technology practically obsolete. This worked wonders for helping raise a fragile human child. Mikleo being Sorey's self proclaimed protector had learned how to stitch back breaks and cuts from early on. His own corporeal form was admittedly just as fragile, but Mikleo had no choice but to jump in after his friend when they fell down access shafts and dead spaces in their home station. Luckily he had learned how to alter gravitational fields shortly after.
Mikleo created such a field around Sorey's injured leg, leaving it weightless and allowing the seraph to control it as he helped his human companion to a seat inside. Lucky the seat was adjustable, allowing them to recline it slightly, making it a little more comfortable. The seraph intended to see to the boy's injury all along, away from prying eyes of course. It was satisfying to see the surprise morph on Sorey's face as he felt the first tendrils of what he could only describe as heat flutter in and about his ankle.
“I thought you were going to let it be. Rose had said it would be done by morning.” he smiled in gratitude
“Ya? Well they can finish on your shin. She must've thought you had bots in your system like everyone else, it would've actually had taken 2 days longer. Plus, now I know for sure you'll sleep.” Mikleo could see the fight his friend was losing to exhaustion from the strain he had just put on him.
“Mmm, just a couple hours.” a yawn “Wake me so we can do something about food.”
“Sure thing.” Mikleo noted tossing a blinding orange blanket over Sorey from the small pile of items Rose had discarded.
Walking to the hatch he keyed it closed, it had no problems sliding shut now that the pod's power had been restored. It's redundant fusion batteries could keep the pod fully powered for up to 3 weeks. Mikleo then went to turn thermostat up, not worrying about an extended stay. They landed on the planet's northern hemisphere, just south of it's artic zone. Luckily it was the during it's spring season, so the cold was nothing more than a nip in the air. It was still a nip that they didn't have to deal with.
Deciding it was best to allow himself a couple hours rest, the Seraph plopped himself next to the sleeping human. Being an ascended being, he didn't need sleep, but keeping up his form and healing Sorey created a small sense of tiredness. He set a silent alarm on the human's personal still attached to his arm. This was to make sure to wake him half an hour before he calculated his companion's stomach would wake its owner. Thoughts of what the lifeboat's rations would allow him to cook up were quickly followed by heavy eyelids and the darkness of sleep.